Buccaneer!

The stars beamed to him across light-years of hard vacuum.
He had left the star ship hours ago, and was drifting well below
the speed of light toward the ellipsoidal Klingon/Federation
neutral zone. With no charts or instruments to guide him, he had
to steer carefully around the neutral zone by memory alone. In
his mind, he envisioned a dotted line — his intended path —
going around a luminescent oval.

Suddenly, his left eardrum buzzed into life. A receiver had
been jammed right up next to it so that he could hear messages
even though there was no air around him. He was picking up a
distress signal from a ship named "Kobayashi Maru," explaining
that it was powerless — and that signal was coming from the
center of the Klingon neutral zone.

He had to communicate with the star ship he'd come from. He
could not speak in the vacuum of space, but his mental
communicator eliminated that problem. He closed his eyes,
cleared his mind, and thought, 'Com channel open 1243/7A.
Request status Kobayashi Maru.'

The message flashed across subspace instantly and was
returned almost as quickly. "The Kobayashi Maru," droned a
static-frought female voice, "Is a passenger ship currently en
route from Klingon to Vulcan. It's carrying some three hundred
Federation passengers."

'Damn,' he thought under his breath. He had no choice.
Redirecting himself toward the Klingon border, he clicked his
tiny rocket pack into action and plunged through the imaginary
barrier. 'I am now in violation of interstellar treaty,' he
thought.

Though the border he'd crossed was only imaginary, this area
was as thick with space dust as an atmosphere. There was no
metallic glint to indicate a passenger ship; the only glint that
eventually resolved was the flat-gray of standard sensor
reflecting material.

In fact, there were three flat-gray glints of standard sensor
reflecting material moving in on him, each shaped suspiciously like a Klingon
K't'inga-class warship. He figured it out instantly; he'd been had.
The Kobayashi Maru was probably safe at home by now.

No matter, warships couldn't lock their weapons onto
anything his size. And after all, he had his sword: the fabled
three-meter-long golden scimitar with the words "PHOTON TORPEDO"
stamped onto its meter-wide business end; a weapon which could do
the equivalent of twenty-five sword hacks.

'Odd thing,' he puzzled, 'Their front shields are down. Why
would —'

Twenty scintillations of light answered his question, as
they materialized into space-suited Klingon soldiers all wearing
rocket packs and armed with phasers. The ships' shields were up
now. . . .

And so were their shuttle launch bay doors. Six armed
shuttlecraft arced out of the rears of the ships to add their
heavy firepower support.

'Commence evasive action,' he thought just as the first
Klingon soldier fired at him. Fortunately, he had commenced
evasive action, and had put his sword between himself and the
Klingon mass. The gold surface harmlessly deflected the red phaser beam.

But the Klingons were moving to surround him. 'Aha, the old
sphere maneuver. Guess it's time I took the offensive.' He
headed for the top side of their sphere, ninety degrees away from
the Klingon vessels, picked out the nearest soldier and let him
have it. The Klingon had time to get in one good gasp before a
swipe of the sword vaporized him in a fiery cloud of dust.

Oh nuts, he didn't see the phaser beam that sideswiped him from
behind. It burned a gash in the left side of his studded leather armor;
the Klingon soldier who did that would pay for it. He came about, holding
his sword high above his head, and five more phasers streaked toward him.
He projected their courses mentally, found a hole, and weaved safely into the
one place the beams didn't hit.

'Now I think I'll take out a few dozen soldiers,' he thought just as
one of the shuttles fired at him. The heavier "Point Defense" phaser beam
struck his sword and sent it flying out of his hands all the way to the end of
its nine-meter tether. The tether line was almost invisible against the
stellar backdrop, but he instinctively grabbed it and yanked the sword back
toward himself. That golden weapon was the only thing standing between
him and —

The Klingon soldiers opened fire freely. Phaser beams tore
at his leather-encased body, sending peals of shock down his
nerves and battering away at his consciousness. At least, before
he would die, he knew that he had served the United Planets well.

The void around him suddenly filled with air. His ears
rang; the receiver on his eardrum started to irritate him. The
Klingon ships and soldiers now appeared quite non-corporeal and
grainy. A voice shouted, "Gravity!," and he fell right through a
Klingon to an invisible floor five meters below. "Lights!"
shouted the same voice, and the stars, ships, and soldiers all
disappeared, replaced by a 30-meter-wide white domed arena.

A door set flush in one wall opened, and Star Fleet
Commodore Quimby walked through. "I hope you know," he said with
the same voice that had called for gravity and lights, "That the
Klingons take no prisoners."

The man in the studded leather armor manually reeled in his
sword that did the equivalent of twenty-five sword hacks by its
now-quite-visible black tether line. "There didn't seem to be
any way out of that situation."

"Of course not; there wasn't. The Kobayashi Maru isn't a
test of skill, it's a test of character."

There was no way to sheath his sword, so the man simply held
it upright; in his hands, it was practically massless anyway. It
looked more like a giant falchion than a giant scimitar save for
its nomenclature. "No-win situations aren't that alien to me,
you know. That was how I got into the Orion Pirates."

"Yeah, I know; shanghaied. You made a pretty good pirate, I
understand."

"Of course I did, I wanted to get time off for good
behavior. My comrades all called me the Buccaneer, 'cause I was
so good with the Orion Fast Patrol Ship of the same name. If I
hadn't found this sword buried in that photon-torpedoed slag
heap, I might never have made it back to the Federation.
Exposure to that slag heap made me nearly as strong as a gorn, you know."

A thought surfaced in the Commodore's consciousness. "Do
you have a regular name?"

The man pondered this. "I did, a long time ago, before the
Orion Pirates shanghai'd me. Now I'm just that guy with the
sword that does the equivalent of 25 sword hacks. I guess you
can just call me . . . Buccaneer!"

Trumpets blared in the background. His blond whisp of hair
settled lightly across his forehead, making his face look like a
cross between Space Ace and Aquaman. The rest of his body was
covered at all points in studded leather armor, which gave
practically zilch protection against modern 23rd century weapons,
and not much more against primitive devices. This covered up the
invisible scars from the Federation's battery of operations that
allowed him to breathe in space.

"You guys have done wonders to — er, for me," he said
presently. "With those devices you installed, I don't need to
breathe, eat, drink, sleep, or think. I don't even need to be
pressurized; I can thrive in deep space. I just wish you'd
upgrade me and give me a warp pack instead of these puny rockets."

"You know as well as I do that those warp booster pods make
you more vulnerable."

"Yeah, I know, I take two points of damage for every hit point
inflicted on me. Only problem is that without faster-than-light speed I
have to operate locally from a mother starship, which cuts my ability in
half. After all, I'm BUCCANEER!, defender of Federation planets
everywhere, whose sword does the equivalent of 25 sword hacks!"

Those immortal words accompanied Buccaneer out of Earth's
ionisphere several hours later. There seemed to be a little
skirmish going on at one of the base stations along the Klingon
border, and he was going there aboard a Constitution class
starship to check it out. He reached the orbiting dock, and
climbed aboard the command cruiser through its shuttle bay. He
usually got warm greetings for not having to waste airlocks.

The star ship wasn't half way to the border when she needed
more dilithium crystals. "These cruisers always need more
dilithium crystals," commented Buccaneer. The ship parked itself
in orbit about a class-M planet rich in dilithium, which was
inhabited by the usual humanoid aliens. Buccaneer decided to
have a little fun; he left the ship along with the shuttlecraft
that was going to the surface, and raced it down through the
atmosphere.

"Hooray!" shouted the inhabitants when they saw the golden
gleam. "It's Buccaneer!"

Buccaneer descended near the largest crowd. "Thank you, thank
you, thank you . . . Hey, you people are really something, I mean
that!"

"Yaaaay!" they cheered.

He whipped his sword around through the air a bit.

"Yaaaay!"

'A Constitution class cruiser gets nothing compared to what
I drum up!,' he thought. He figured he'd go for a little more
egotism, flipped over backward in midair, and bowed.

"Yaaaay!"

The shuttle, meanwhile, had landed and its crew was making a
deal as to how cheaply they could buy the dilithium. SUDDENLY, a
tiny penumbra and the rumble of shuttlecraft engines grabbed
their attention. They looked to its source, and saw the definite
outline of a renegade fighter shuttle.

The crowd and Buccaneer saw it too. A pair of drone
missiles was tucked neatly under its wings, and its forward point
defense phaser was aimed menacingly at the ground near the
shuttle crew. The studded leather armor clad swordsman hadn't an
instant to waste. With a mental command, his rockets roared on
and thrusted super-efficiently across his asbestos (but studded
leather) pants. He leapt skyward to face his marauding adversary.

"Hooray!," the crowd repeated, "Go get 'em, Buccaneer!"

All during the flight toward the fighter, Buccaneer
shouldered his sword as though he were about to swing it. The
golden glint and the brown outfit caught the fighter's attention,
but not enough to keep it from strafing the ground near the
shuttle crew with phaser fire.

This might have been just a scare tactic, or it might have
been bad aim; whichever it was, Buccaneer couldn't let it
continue. He maneuvered right in front of the fighter, scimitar
held menacingly ready, and shouted, "STOP!"

A hatch on the fighter opened, and the pilot poked his torso out,
leading with a threatening hand phaser. The pilot was a member of one of
the races subjugated under the Klingons. "Back off, buddy," he said with
a thick Klingonese accent, "Or I'll blast your body apart!"

Buccaneer smiled, and repeated the line that made him a
legend in his own time: "My sword does the equivalent of 25 sword hacks!"

And then he hacked — once. The fighter shuttle vaporized in
a whisp of smoke. The pilot began to fall, but Buccaneer caught him on
the flat of his blade. "Sorry to wreck your little vandalism raid, but
you see we Federation people are sworn to protect life, not watch it get
vaporized."

He set the pilot down in front of the shuttle crew. "Now,"
he began, lifting his sword, "I believe you have some explaining to do."

The ex-fighter-pilot swallowed hard, which was rather a feat
since this particular species of sentient beings ate by osmosis.
"I didn't wanna do it, honest! They made me do it, they did, they did!"

"Who made you do it?" the highest ranked person in the
shuttle crew demanded.

"My Klingon bosses! They wanted me to scare the local
inhabitants — by killing a few of them. When I saw the shuttle,
I figured I had to take you guys out first."

"The Klingons?" the C.O. wondered. "But this planet's in
Federation territory — it's a full-fledged United Planets
member, as a matter of fact. Why would the Klingons want to pull
a renegade attack on a little dirt-ball like this?"

"They wanted me to fire the starboard drone just before I
left, but not until then. Honest, I don't know why!"

"Buccaneer?"

Buccaneer flew back over to where he'd annihilated the
shuttle. Fragments of leaflet were gently settling out. The
papers read, "Give it up to the Klingons, you don't stand a chance!".

"Propaganda bomb," Buccaneer said when he returned. "Sounds
like the Klingons are ready to start a war."

"Then that outpost station skirmish might be more important
than we figured. Let's go!"

"But what about the dilithium?"

"Forget it! The ship can go years without needing another
recharge! I just wanted an excuse to get down here and stretch my legs!"

Buccaneer shrugged it off, and he and the shuttle lifted off
back for the command cruiser. Once both entered the shuttle bay,
the ship quickly broke orbit and accelerated to warp speed.

The brink of the neutral zone seemed ghostly quiet.
Normally, any visits would make subspace teem with transmissions
of all levels of importance to and from the nearest outpost
station, but here it was dead silent. Now more anxious, the
starship closed in on the asteroid to which the base was anchored.

Since the ship was down to impulse speed, Buccaneer could
accompany it from the outside. Unable to see through the
bridge's telescopic viewer, though, Buccaneer only sighted the
asteroid when he and the ship were practically on top of it. As
the asteroid rotated so that its far side was facing them, the
Captain of the star ship winced an alarm to Buccaneer's eardrum
receiver: "My God! The base station's been wiped out!"

Buccaneer mentally transmitted, 'Don't worry, I'll check it
out and see what kinds of weapons hit it' in response. He
brought himself up to flank speed, counterthrusted when the time
was just right, and landed feet first in the remains of the
outpost station. With the base's gravity generators out of
operation, he was almost weightless.

He inspected the charred, metallic rubble for the usual
signs of battle. Wiping his leather-covered finger across the
soot, he picked up a few grains which tumbled down slower than
terrestrial dust. The soot grains twinkled in the starship's
searchlight like graphite. 'Phasers,' he transmitted in thought.

In the distance he could see weapon-produced craters that
looked like they'd been heavily irradiated. 'And photon torpedoes.'

A few of the craters, though, were charred more like they'd
been hit by phasers than by photon torpedoes; however, phasers
didn't make craters, and these craters were smaller than photon
torpedo-sized. 'And . . . disruptor bolts,' he projected across
subspace, slightly agitated.

"Disruptor bolts are standard Klingon weaponry," the Captain
replied. "Do you think this place was attacked by a Klingon vessel?"

'Most probably a Klingon K't'inga class up-rated cruiser. They're
the only ships I know of that use both photons and disruptors.'

"If Klingons attacked this place, the personell here should have seen
them coming. Why didn't they transmit an S.O.S. to Star Fleet H.Q.?"

'Maybe they didn't see them coming. It could have been a
surprise attack.'

"With all their sensors peering across fifty light-years of
neutral zone? Not a chance. The Klingons would have to sneak
around from behind or be invisible."

An idea dawned on Buccaneer. 'An idea just dawned on me.
The cloaking device.'

The Captain giggled a bit. "That's the one piece of technology
the Romulans'd never sell to their Klingon allies."

'Then the Klingons might have stolen it.'

The Captain was silent for a long time. When his voice returned,
it sounded all the more serious even through the tinniness of Buccaneer having
the speaker crystal right up against his eardrum. "The log for the base
is kept about a kilometer below ground at the bottom of a shaft. See if
you can find it."

'Gotcha.' Buccaneer quickly located the shaft, which was wide enough to
turn around in, and dove in head first. He had to keep his sword swept
back behind him where he couldn't swing it. The light from the command
cruiser would never follow him down a full kilometer, so he took his flashlight
from his belt and shone it ahead of him.

The bottom came into sight three minutes later. Turning
himself around, his sword still pointing up because the shaft was
less than three meters wide, he activated the rockets that
brought him to a stop. He landed in a white steel room some four
meters cube, at the center of which was a small, nearly-cubical
black box that had three buttons and a speaker plug, sitting atop a tripod.

He picked up the box and fumbled for the speaker plug cord.
To hold the box, the sword, the flashlight, and the cable he
really needed four hands, and had to fumble with the whole mess
several times before he plugged the cable into the input jack on
his receiver. Now both he and the starship could hear the log
being played. 'Here it is,' he thought, and pushed the first button.

"Mwewewdudulududledededow, tololodededuludulee —" The audio
signal seemed to draw a picture in his mind; he and the inhabitants of the
command cruiser above were watching a video of people madly rushing backwards
in the command center of an outpost station.

'Oops, sorry, that was rewind.' He pushed the second
button, hoping for better results. The mental image the sound
effects produced this time was one of the C.O. talking.

"Commanding officer's log, stardate 2274.3. Sensors have
picked up nothing in the neutral zone, as usual, but one of my
crew swears he saw a couple of the stars bend, as though
something were passing in front of them. I have put the station
on yellow alert —"

Buccaneer interrupted at this point. 'Yellow alert means
they turned on their shields at minimum strength.'

"We know what it means, Bucky. Keep playing."

"— and have turned on the stellar background analyzer just
to be safe. It sounds like a cloaking device, but Romulan
territory's on the other side of the Federa . . . oh, my God!
It's two Klingon warships! — one D7 battlecruiser and one
K't'inga. The K't'inga just fired three photon torpedoes! I
can't bring the shields up to full strength in —"

The Captain spoke to Buccaneer again, now more worried than ever.
"Stardate 2274.3; that was four days ago. The Klingon-Federation war
should already be old news. If the Klingons have stolen the cloaking
device, at least the Romulans won't be backing them in this war. Come on,
let's check out some of the other outposts!"

'Right behind you,' Buccaneer thought as he rocketed up
through the shaft carrying his sword and the black box. His
flashlight could stay on his belt for all he cared. He emerged
from inside the asteroid and headed straight for the command
cruiser's shuttle bay. Once inside, they took off at a speed
that was just a plain waste of energy.

Ten light-years and half an hour later, they arrived at the
next base station. This was a feat in and of itself, since it
meant they had to travel at over 175 000 times the speed of
light, which was about warp 56.

The base glistened atop the asteroid like a shield-domed
triangular city. The ship was now up to yellow alert and down to
sublight speed with Buccaneer tagging close, though there didn't
seem to be much need for precaution. However, the subspace
communications around this base were as dead as the first.

Finally, when the ship was within a few hundred kilometers
of the base, the Captain decided it was about time to break the
silence. "Star ship NCC 1702 to base 1330. Please acknowledge."

The base did acknowledge, but not over subspace. A dish set
into one corner of the base — a heavy base phaser — angled
slightly and launched up a thick, lethal, blue beam. The heavy
phaser hit the bottom-front of the starship's saucer, and without
its shields up full the ship was the surprise attack's easy prey.
The beam blasted a hole as wide as itself through all eleven
decks of the saucer, leaving only a mangled skeleton behind.

He sped off. The base had only one shuttlecraft, used for
evacuation, and very few space soldiers if any, so it would be an
easy target for him. 'The outpost doesn't have much shielding at
the perimeter,' he thought to the ship. 'Arm whatever phasers
still work. I'm going in.'

"All right," said the Captain, turning to his crew. "Up to
red alert if you haven't done so already. Shields on full."

"The blast weakened the shield generators," complained the
navigator. "The shields'll only work at half strength, at best."

"All right, half strength shields."

"Do you mean half their full strength or half their current
strength, 'cause if you mean half their current strength we'd be
putting them up at a quarter of their full strength."

The Captain had filed five years ago for a new navigator, and wished
now that there was no such thing as red tape. "Half their full strength,"
he said with lethargic contempt. "Arm the starboard phasers, but don't
fire just yet. Buccaneer's gonna go get 'em again."

"Klingon surprise attack," the Captain said to himself.
"They took over one of our bases. I just hope Buccaneer can come
through. . . . He's the last hope we have."

The scene switched back to Buccaneer, with the Battle Hymn
of the Republic wafting through the background. He skimmed down
across the surface of the asteroid right up to the corner that
had fired on the ship, at the edge of the base station's
deflectors. At this low angle, their strength would be cut in
half. He slashed a mighty stroke with his golden scimitar, and
the warhead power of a photon torpedo — the equivalent of 25
sword hacks — tore a gash clean through the shield.

He rocketed on through the rent he'd made, and hacked good
and hard at the corner of the base station. The tractor beam and
both heavy phaser mounts blew apart instantly, and the force of
the blow sent a crack down the bulk of the space station. 'I'm
going for the shield generator,' he transmitted, heading toward
the center of one of the triangular base's sides.

This was even easier. One mighty blow sent a shock wave
down the whole perimeter of the base, weakening the shields
almost to nothing. 'Now,' he thought to the Captain, 'Before
they get a chance to fire, take out that torpedo launcher!'

"Fire starboard phaser at the northeast side of the base,"
commanded the Captain.

A single beam of red-orange energy pulsed from the right-hand
underside of the command cruiser, poked through the faltering shields with
ease, and hit the base right on target. The phaser expanded into a
miniature sun right on top of the photon torpedo launcher, engulfing it and a
few things next to it as well. It was a good thing the Captain knew the
anatomy of his own government's base stations.

'Now their power supply.'

"Okay, sweep the other starboard phaser along the south side
of the outpost station."

Another red-orange beam of pulsed, phased energy sprang from
right next to where the first phaser had come from, and ripped
along the south side of the base just a tad north of the edge.
The nuclear reactors collapsed, darkening the surface of the
asteroid. Doubtless most of the internal systems and about half
the population of the base station were destroyed by now.

"Hold it!" shouted the Captain. "We're getting a signal.
It's an unconditional surrender from someone with a thick
Klingonese accent!"

"Hooray!" shouted the crew all at once.

'All right!' thought Buccaneer. 'I'm coming back on board.'

Buccaneer flew up inside the hole in the ship's hull (left
by the base's phaser) and knocked on one of the damage control
shield doors. Five seconds later, the door flew open and a man
standing in as much of a hard vacuum as he was, who wasn't
wearing a space suit, mouthed, "Yes, who's there?

"Oh, it's you, Buccaneer! Come on in!"

'These damage control guys had the same operation I did,'
Buccaneer thought as he stepped into the corridor and through an
airlock, breathing good air for the first time in a while.
Despite the operation, real breathing still felt better.

Buccaneer made it over onto the bridge. The gravity was
annoying, but he was used to it. The ship was down to yellow
alert, as usual — it was that way about 98 percent of the time
— and the Captain was telling the Klingons what they could do
with their hand phasers.

"Okay, you imperial bastards, when we come on board, I want
each and every one of you to be as far away from the controls as
you can get, unarmed, and with your hands clasped together in
back of your bony heads. Anyone not doing so will be vaporized."

"Would you really do that?" asked Buccaneer.

"Of course not," the Captain whispered, "But they don't know that."

The science officer turned to the Captain. "Something doesn't
make. I'm not picking up any life forms down there on the base."

"All the Klingons on the base have surrendered," boomed an alien
voice over their communications. "But you have much bigger troubles."

The Captain was quite skeptical. "What is he
. . ." The stars along the top of the asteroid wavered
momentarily, as if something had moved in front of them and was making a poor
copy of them. ". . . talking . . ." The thing
standing in front of the stars and making a poor copy of them finally showed
its true colors. It was D6 battlecruiser gray. ". . .
about? . . ."

The Klingon vessel unloaded all four of its disruptor bolts
almost as soon as it materialized. "Ambush!" the Captain
shouted. "That warship was hiding behind the asteroid and using
the base against us by remote control! Raise shields to full —"

The Klingon's phasers were charged and ready. "This ship's
doomed," said Buccaneer. "We've got to evacuate!"

"All that hard work. All those years in Star Fleet
command. . . ."

The Captain was beyond reason. Buccaneer darted into the
turbo elevator and headed for the shuttle bay. In the distance,
he heard the crackle of phased energy beams ionizing the command
cruiser's electronic gear.

The shuttle bay was already filling up with terrified
people, since the transporters were mobbed. As people piled into
the operating escape shuttlecraft, Buccaneer searched the
inoperable shuttles for a very necessary piece of equipment. "I
need a warp pack," he said to himself. "Don't these guys have
any shuttles with dash pods strapped on?"

His eye caught a metal band clamped on the end of a shuttle.
He ran to the rear of the craft, and to his relief read, "'Warp
Engine Booster Pod #724.' All right!"

He grabbed the top straps of the pack and began to pull. A
fully equipped deck crew could divorce the pack from the shuttle
in seconds, but with no tools he had to resort to more primitive
methods. Peeling back the straps he wouldn't need anyway, he
ripped the pod from its bolts with his brutish near-gorn
strength.

His eardrum receiver was going crazy even as he clumsily held the pack
to his back with his sword and dashed for the bay doors. He plugged his
left ear up as best he could — the receiver worked even worse in open air
than it did in a vacuum — and listened to the tin. "This is Star
Fleet Headquarters. We are under attack. All warships recalled to
defend the Federation at once."

"Oh boy," he said. Well, there went his job.

Whoever could fit aboard a shuttle had already been fit.
The shuttle bay depressurized, the doors opened, and the first
shuttle rolled out onto the turntable. Well, it wouldn't be the
very first to leave. Buccaneer held the dash pod in place with
his arms and carried his sword in his hands as he normally did,
activated his tiny but powerful rockets, and blasted out of the
shuttle bay three seconds ahead of the first shuttle.

He watched the command cruiser die over his shoulder while
he accelerated. Her shields had gone down long ago, and now it
seemed her weapons were useless. One of her warp engines had
been ripped from its support beam, and the other probably
couldn't generate half a megawatt. The Captain had probably
thought of separating the saucer, which contained the bridge, but
there wasn't that much left of it to separate.

He couldn't bear to watch anymore; besides, nearly all the
shuttles had made it out safely so far. With the reluctance of
his rank and all his countrymen, he turned his sullen eyes to his warp pack.

It had to be the most complicated thing he'd ever tried to
handle; but then again, even as an Orion pirate he only had to
know how to shoot a phaser straight. There had to be some
instructions somewhere . . . aha, there they were! "The Galileo
Warp Engine Booster Pack Owner's Manual"

He opened it and began skimming through. "Congratulations!
You have just purchased the most advanced dash pod made for the
Galileo class shuttlecraft! This warp pod will double the speed
of your shuttle and give you hours of enjoyment. Designed by
compact warp industries for your benefit, . . ."

That little introduction almost made him retch. He flipped
through the pages, casually noting how much more fragile it made
the craft that used the pack and the virtues of flying a shuttle
at twelve times the speed of light instead of six. Finally, he
found what he was looking for:

"This booster pack can also be used to give warp speed
capability to sub-light shuttlecraft. The craft must attain a
velocity of half the speed of light before the warp pack may be
engaged. The pack must be strapped to the back of the craft, as
despite the space warp it creates for speed, it will push the
craft under newtonian acceleration."

'Since when have I ever followed Newton's laws?' thought
Buccaneer. 'I'm up to half the speed of light already.'

"To engage the warp pod, push the big red button marked START."

'Yep, I was right, this is the most complicated piece of machinery I've
ever used.' He turned so that he was facing what he remembered to be the
center of the Federation, and pushed the big red button.

'Whoa,' he thought as the pack pushed him belly-forward.
The acceleration was debilitating. Stars in his immediate
vicinity began to flash past him in an eight-pointed diamond
pattern. When he looked behind himself, he saw that he was
growing a non-corporeal tail that looked like his picture had
been spread over half a kilometer. Finally, his contrail caught
up with him, and he smashed into hyperspace.

For the first time in his life, the stars — the naked
stars — were moving past him, like the ghost of some unreal
velocity. He'd never witnessed this breathtaking scene before without
air or glass in the way. Star Fleet Headquarters, or Earth, was only
a few hours away now.

'The Klingons actually launched a surprise war,' he thought,
still wondering why they betrayed their Romulan allies. 'Their
cloaking devices might have let them pass unnoticed this far, but
they won't help them any more. Our side's too used to that old
Romulan ploy; we've made systems that can lock-on to a cloaked
ship almost as well as they can lock-on to an asteroid. But it's
going to be a tought fight.'

He tuned into Federation subspace news, and listened
intently for the length of his voyage. Several units of the
Federation's Star Fleet had been deceived by exactly the same
ploy his command cruiser had just answered, but most of the ships
arrived at headquarters just as the Klingons were about to attack
it. The battle had been quite fierce, and in the end major
elements of both fleets were destroyed. Scouts sighted numerous
other Klingon units at various locations, since the Klingons were
pretty inept at using cloaking devices to their full
effectiveness. Federation warships rushed to these locations to
do all they could, but in the end most were destroyed — along
with most of the Klingon vessels. With the help the cloaking
device had given the Klingons, the two fleets were almost evenly matched.

Almost, but not quite.

When the Federation and Klingon fleets had wiped each other
out, the Klingons sent in their last K't'inga class cruiser —
the up-rated version of their own D7 battlecruiser — to finish
off the job. It easily slipped through the now non-existent Star
Fleet defenses, and was presently headed for the undefended home
star of the United Federation: the sun. The ship would probably
wipe out the Earth.

Buccaneer had no time to lose (again). He altered his
course from Star Fleet Headquarters to Earth, since the two were
separated by nearly a hundred light-years. He simply had to beat
the K't'inga vessel there; he was the last hope of the Federation.

The dilithium trail leading to the inner Solar system
confirmed his fear; he wasn't the first one there. 'The
Klingons' long-range scanners will doubtlessly pick up my warp
engines. I'll have to jettison this dash pod before I reach the
inner Solar system.'

He swished his sword around a few times in preparation for
what was to come. All that training in Admiral Xavier's
Nastiness Room was about to prove — or disprove — its worth.
This was sort-of like the Kobayashi Maru, what with fighting off
an entire Klingon ship with only a sword that did the equivalent
of 25 sword hacks. But this time, he would be the enemy force
sneaking up for a surprise attack.

While he was still inside the asteroid belt, he disengaged
his warp pack and let go of it, leaving it just another nameless
rock in among the minor planets. Now, going only slightly faster
than half the speed of light, Buccaneer headed for the Earth.

He spotted the Klingon ship while his destination was still
just a blue dot. If it had a cloaking device, it was turned off
since apparently they had no opposition to sneak by. The attack
had not yet begun, although the ship was within full striking
range. Buccaneer took out a little catalogue he always carried
with him, and turned to the page for K't'inga class ships. The
Blueprints covered both the left and right pages, showing
approximately where all the vital organs — er, systems were located.

Memorizing this for a few seconds, he put the pamphlet away
(showing its Paramount Pictures label), brandished his sword, and
sped on toward the ship. 'Okay, Klingons, before you destroy
Mother Terra you'll have to feel the wrath of BUCCANEER! You
see, my sword does the equivalent of 25 sword hacks!'

"Heh heh heh," chortled the Klingon captain in fluent
Klingonese. The only things visible were his two arms and his
pet Klingoncat, and his voice was just a few octaves too low.
"At last, the final annihilation of the life form known as man!
Let the attack begin. . . . Goodbye, Terra!"

"Captain Claw, sir!" interrupted his first officer. The
approaching glint of gold had caught his attention. "Look, out in space!"

Captain Claw was not completely unprepared. "Launch the
administrative shuttle and the Z1 fighter. Beam out the space
marines to deal with that interfering son-of-a-primate. Our
little sword-wielding friend won't stand a chance."

The K't'inga ship was well in view by now. Buccaneer could
see the trademark wings-with-a-long-neck design that all Klingon
ships save the bird of prey used, the heavy warp engines, the
fringelike nearly invisible shields that had an open corridor in
them sixty degrees wide, and fifty scintillating patches of space
suit-shaped transporter light. There was also a standard armed
shuttlecraft and another odd-looking craft coming at him.

'Space marines,' he thought. 'Undoubtedly not as used to
this type of thing as I am. That shuttle'll never lock-on to me,
and even if it does its phaser traverses too slowly to stay
trained on me long enough to fire. What bugs me is that other
craft; it doesn't look like a regular shuttle or fighter.'

Captain Claw pressed a button on his console which glowed
the blue of underlighting. "Now!" he commanded.

'Now!' Buccaneer thought as he moved out and twenty-eight
phaser beams crossed his previous position. 'Ack, those guys
have good aim.'

The gap in the shields that the space marines beamed out
through had long ago closed up. It didn't matter much, though,
since the deflectors in the back of the craft were barely half as
powerful as the deflectors in front. What concerned him the most
now were those fifty marksman space marines. 'Think I'll even
the odds a bit.'

The marines were making the usual mistake of splitting up
and trying to surround him. Oh well, he maneuvered to their
perimeter, came face to face with one of them, and mouthed
something meaningless to him before he vaporized him with one
good scimitar stroke.

He suddenly remembered what happened at about this point in
the Kobayashi Maru scenario. He turned his attention to the
other Klingons, and successfully bent out of the way of a well-placed phaser
shot. The Klingon who did that could wait; taking
out that armed shuttlecraft was more important. He sighted the
shuttle and headed for it, taking the erratic zig-zag path he'd
been taught to use. The shuttle fired once, but it was a far miss.

The shuttle pilots got in one good panic before they and
their vehicle disintegrated in a photonic flash. 'Well,' thought
Buccaneer, 'That was easy.' A twinge of subconscious danger
pecked at him to look at the Klingon warship, and then he
realized what he'd done. 'I've been a fool,' he thought in
anguish as the K't'inga fired its forward photon torpedo at the
unarmed world below.

The red ball of light-energy burned through the atmosphere
like a meteor, impacting against the main deflector shield of
Gibraltar City. Red lightning bolts arked across the domed layer
of force, tolling peals of thunder to the terrified inhabitants.

Commodore Quimby looked up at the Gibraltar City skyline in
horror. "It's finally happening," he whimpered. "The beginning of
the end."

The atmosphere and the defensive shield had saved Earth for
now, but the shields wouldn't last at that rate.

"Right away, boss," the fighter pilot on the viewscreen
replied, conking his fist to his head. "That Aquaman imitation
is as good as dead meat right now!"

Buccaneer caught it out of the corner of his eye. The other
craft — whatever it was — was making an attack run on him. He
took evasive action just as it fired a thick, pulsed, red-orange
beam at where he used to be. 'Yeow!' he thought. 'That was a
full-fledged Klingon offensive-defensive ship's phaser, more
powerful than the point defense types carried by armed shuttles!
I'd better take this guy out fast!'

He flew around behind the fast-moving craft — a nearly-impossible
task — and hit it full swing. There was the standard pinkish-white
light burst and the smoke, but the shuttle was still there. 'I don't
believe it.'

Oddly enough, it was the offensive-defensive phaser built
into the front of the shuttle that his sword hack had disabled.
"Heh heh," gloated the pilot, "That phaser should be the least of
your worries, Bucko! You should be more concerned with THIS."

The instant he said "THIS," he pressed the button atop his
left control stick. Warp fuel flared up from inside a hidden
weapons bay, and a small dogfight drone missile streaked out
backward toward the studded leather armored warrior.

'Yikes,' he yelped, and readied his sword. The missile was
headed for him at twelve times the speed of light, so he'd have
to really try and make this shot count. Just when the missile
was two-and-a-half meters away from him, his sword met it and
sliced it neatly into nothingness.

Buccaneer was breathless, especially since he was in space.
'If my slice angle had been just a little shallower, I would've
set the thing off. . . .'

"That was lucky, hero," growled the Z1 pilot, "But you won't
be so lucky THIS time!"

Again, he launched just when he said the word "THIS," this
time pushing the button atop his right control stick. His other
(and last) dogfight drone streaked out of its housing and headed for home.

'There's no way I'm trying that sword trick again,'
Buccaneer figured. 'I was lucky once. I hit that thing wrong and
twenty thousand tons of warhead go off in my face. I guess I'll
just have to —'

He ducked down just in time. The missile passed only
centimeters above his head. '— avoid it!'

But he wasn't out of the cream yet. The dogfight drone was
a seeking missile, and it curved around and headed for Buccaneer
again. Buccaneer clenched his teeth and raised his eyebrows, and
the missile just about reached him when it ran out of fuel.
Relieved, Buccaneer easily got out of its way.

But Claw hadn't counted on one thing: his closed circuit
communications could be monitored on subspace if anyone knew the
right frequency. And Buccaneer, having done this sort of thing
with the Orion pirates all the time, knew the right frequency. He
also knew Klingonese. 'Oh, nuts! A disruptor bolt attack on
Earth! How am I going to stop it?'

To stop it, he would have to get rid of the disruptor bolt
launchers. Unfortunately, those were fixed to the fronts of the
two warp engines. But the warp engines were only weakly connected
to the rest of the ship, held there by flimsy wingtips. . . .

Buccaneer rocketed toward the port warp engine on the K't'inga ship,
coming in from behind. A few of the space marines fired at him, but the
range was too great for accuracy and Buccaneer could see the beams
coming. He straddled right up next to the port flank deflector shield and
smashed at it with a mighty sword blow. The weak side-rear shield buckled
and reluctantly peeled apart. Slipping in through the electrostatic
hole, he sliced the wing holding the engine mount on. A pinkish-white
fault spread down the gray wing and at last separated the engine from the ship.

"The same time the engine was disconnected from the ship."
The damage control reporter was having quite a good time of this.

"WHAT???!? That cuts our available power in half!
Sergeant Cartilage!"

"Yes sir?" responded the leader of the space marines.

"Stop that meddling Federationist!"

"Uh, sure," he signed off. He'd been trying to do just that
ever since his team beamed out.

Captain Claw still had a few aces up his black sleeve.
"Launch a drone at Earth!" he commanded.

Now out in the general area between the ship and Earth,
Buccaneer watched in open-mouthed horror as a pair of huge doors
next to the shuttle bay opened and released a full sized drone
missile. He plotted its course in his mind, and put himself right
were he thought it would go. 'I've got good aim,' he thought,
'But drones are faster-than-light.' He looked at his sword.
'Fortunately, so are photon torpedoes.'

The drone streaked Earthward, nearing Buccaneer each
millisecond. 'Gotta time it just right . . .' he thought.
He began to swing the sword just when the drone was a little over a
kilometer away. It impacted exactly, and the drone flashed out of
existence. 'Yahoo, did it! This antimatter warhead'll never reach
Earth! That Klingon captain — ol' Claw, I think it is — sure
ain't gonna appreciate that!'

"I don't appreciate that!" bellowed Captain Claw. With his
ship's limited ability to fire only one drone at a time,
Buccaneer could take them all out. That strategy simply wouldn't work.

'Now then,' Bucky pondered, 'How can I really cripple this
ship? I could take out the other engine. . . . Naah,
they're probably waiting for me over there right now. I could knock out
the bridge. . . . Nope, the shields are too strong at the front
of the ship.'

His mind sensed it and let him dive clear of a point defense
phaser beam from the still-alive strange-looking fighter. He
began to engage the craft, zig-zagging erratically as usual, when
the blueprints to the K't'inga flashed back in his mind
momentarily. He ignored this as he closed with the fighter.

He was at point blank range, but his troubles were not over
yet. The phaser mounted on top of the fighter had pivoted and
was now aiming straight for him. He had to flip up and over his
sword, not that up had any meaning where there was no gravity,
but he made it out of the next beam's way.

And the blue prints flashed back to him again. The picture
was a bit more vivid than before, and the view had zoomed a bit
closer to the front half of the ship, but the idea still didn't make sense.

'All right, you've had it, Klingon scum!' He slashed his
sword across the top of the figher with one hand, and it exploded
into fragments. Contented, he blew the smoke from the business
end of his golden scimitar.

Once more, the image of the blueprints returned to him.
This time they were showing practically nothing but the boom
section of the ship between the wings and the command bulb. The
image lingered for nearly two seconds, and a section of the boom
was flashing. 'Of course!' He clapped his hands silently,
finally catching on to the subconscious suggestion. 'The boom!
If I can sever the boom section, then good ol' Captain Claw will
be out of contact with the bulk of his ship! I'VE GOT NO TIME TO LOSE!!'

He sped off, with no time to lose.

"Oh, no!" exclaimed Claw. "He's heading for the boom! STOP
HIM!"

"Sure thing, boss," Sergeant Cartilage responded, conking
his fist to his head. Then, to his troops: "Go get 'im, men!"

"And women!" demanded the only female Klingon of the outfit.

"And woman! He's going for the boom!"

Getting to the boom only involved crossing over the wing
section, but Buccaneer could tell that wouldn't be a short trip.
'Oh well, here I go again!'

He met the first opposition even before he began to cross
the wings. A Klingon soldier was waiting in ambush and sprang
out, his phaser blazing its red trail across the void, when
Buccaneer crossed his sights. Unfortunately, he was on the wrong
side of Buccaneer, and his shot merely hit the sword and dwindled
off. Buccaneer shook his head tut-tutting the soldier's move,
skimmed the surface of the shields, came right up next to the
Klingon, and reduced the space marines' ranks from 49 to 48.
Then he continued merrily on his way across the top of the ship.

Nearly the full compliment of space marines was sitting atop
the upper deflector shield, cuddled in the little niches built
into the ship, and continually firing tiny beams of phased energy
at Buccaneer. 'One direct hit and I'm done for,' he worried.
'Gonna have to make this one fast!'

The standard weave-and-twist movement technique spared him
moment by moment, but it was too slow; he would have to make a
mad dash for the boom section. He turned his rockets up full and
accelerated forward, his zig-zag maneuvers reduced by the force of the thrust.

"Yes," said Captain Claw. "You're right where I want you,
Bucko!" He pushed another underlighted blue button on his console.

One of the port waist phasers arked its pulsed red-orange
beam toward Buccaneer. 'Ho-hum,' he thought, easily averting the
offensive-defensive phaser. 'I've got no shields and no source
of warp energy. Their sensors'll never lock on to me!'

Buccaneer saw the ultra-wide turquoise beam coming at him
from behind. 'I had a feeling they'd try that,' he thought,
whipping around and trying desperately to get his sword in just
the right position. The beam plunged up to him, ready to envelop
him, but he was just fast enough to get behind his sword and have
the blade aim head-on into the beam. The tractor beam split in
two and curled back when it hit the blade, avoiding Buccaneer
altogether. A few seconds later, the futile beam shut off.

Buccaneer tuned his mental transmitter to Klingon frequency,
looked for the nearest camera on the surface of the ship, and
mouthed his thoughts so that Captain Claw would be sure to catch
them: 'What's the matter, haven't you ever heard of a shearing plane?'

The boom was in sight, but so were forty-eight phaser-firing
space marines. The last few hectometers wouldn't be easy.
Dauntless, Buccaneer weaved forward, desperately avoiding the
phaser fire by predicting where it would be and removing himself
from that locale. Duck, dash, dodge, dart — damn! A phaser
blast caught him on his left side, scorching through the left
side of his studded leather armor just like in Kobayashi Maru.

The pain in his side was minimal, but unlike all the
simulations he'd done, this time it was real. He weaved ever
closer to the boom, using his sword as a little shield whenever
he needed to, and at last made it to the front edge of the wing.

The boom was mere dekameters away, but he couldn't attack it just
yet. The base of the boom had an impulse engine installed in it; if he
cut it off there, the boom would still have power and could get away. He
had to smash the boom in half farther forward. He moved on, the phaser
fire so thick he could almost walk on it.

'That's what you think,' thought Buccaneer, and reached the
boom exactly where he'd intended to.

He looked over his shoulder. The space marine Sergeant was
heading the final assault group to get rid of him. "We've got
him now!" he saw the Sergeant say triumphantly.

'There's no time to cut through the shields and sever the
boom in two separate blows,' he thought. 'They'll cream me in
that time. I'm going to have to do both at once; and the only
way I can do that is if I push my attack to its limit. Yep,
that's right — I have to use my golden scimitar as an overloaded
photon torpedo!'

He held the sword in both hands at arm's length, focusing
his chi into his muscles and the sword itself. The blade glowed
with golden radiation from the overloading of energy in it. He
raised the sword high above his head, clenched his teeth,
wrinkled his forehead, and opened his eyes as wide as they would
go. Then, shouting a silent "Kyi!" in the vacuum of space, he
forced the overloaded sword down onto the boom's shield, and did
the equivalent of 50 sword hacks.

He felt the shield expire with the barest hint of
resistance, and then the boom section collapsed like a bullet
hole in glass. A pyramid of pinkish-white radiation tore through
the boom as though it didn't exist; and finally, the ship had
lost a part of itself.

The space marines stopped firing and just stared,
flabberghasted. 'Now's my chance to reduce their ranks,'
Buccaneer thought as he closed in on them with his sword held
ready to swing. He downed the first one without a hitch, then
went on to the second, then the third, then took out two who were
next to each other with one blow. 'Forty-three,' he counted
down. 'It's not that hard bashing heads in!'

Captain Claw wasn't licked yet. The wing section of the
ship still had an auxiliary control station, which he could talk
to over subspace. "Captain Claw to auxiliary control," he
bellowed into a communicator. "Come in, damn you, chief engineer!"

The chief engineer was away from his post, watching the
battle on local TV. When he saw the picture of their ship
separating, he got up and panicked, forgetting temporarily that
he was supposed to be in aux con.

'I think I'll take out that other warp engine,' Buccaneer
decided after having defeated most of the space marines. He
moved to the starboard side of the wing section of the ship. 'No
warp engines, no power. And no disruptor bolts, either.'

"Where is that lazy bum of a chief engineer?!"

"Right here, boss," said the chief engineer when he made it
back to his post, conking his fist to his head.

"Power up the warp engine and let's get out of here!"

"Can't do that, Doctor — er, Captain Claw. Buccaneer just
cut off the other warp engine."

The scene switched to Buccaneer standing by the warp engine.
The wing tip holding it on had just been cracked open, but the
engine had not completely separated. A tiny piece of the
starship was still holding it in place, although all the wires
had been severed. 'Oops,' Buccaneer commented in thought, rushed
over to the forward side of the engine, and flicked the stubborn
piece of starship with his middle finger. 'That did it,' he
thought, watching the engine and its two disruptor bolt launchers
drift off into space.

Both of them chanted, "Buccaneer just destroyed the aft tractor beam."

"But I still have tractor beams," demanded Claw. "I'll
attach myself to you and then you can tow me out of here."

"No good, sir. Buccaneer just vaporized both our impulse
engines."

The space marine sergeant had successfully snuk up behind
Buccaneer. He was about to blast him with a phaser set on
"kill," but Buccaneer was lucky enough to be watching a piece of
space debris which floated on behind him, and his eyes followed
it far enough to see the incoming attack. He dodged, advanced,
and slashed, vaporizing the sergeant less than a second after he
fired. The only pieces of Sergeant Cartilage that remained were
the bits of connective tissue that held his bones together.

"I'm not licked yet," breathed Claw, desperate but still
scheming. "I've got two fully operating phasers up here that I
can overload with power from the batteries. Helmsman, arm the
two forward phasers for overloaded fire and prepare to wipe out
that stinking planet once and for all!"

"Yessir, yessir!" the helmsman replied, rotating the craft.
They had no engines, but they still had retro control.

Commodore Quimby watched the scene through his 700x
binoculars. "Oh no, it's turning toward us! So this is it,
we're going to die."

Buccaneer turned his attention to the drifting front end.
'He's aimed for Earth,' he thought. 'The front end can't fire
its photon torpedo, since the photons require warp energy to arm
and fire. But its battery power could fire . . . the phasers!
. . .' He sped off for the front end, but it was a long way off
and phasers took hardly any time to arm. . . .

"Heh heh heh!" Claw chortled. "Goodbye again,
Terra. . . ."

'Damn, I wish I had warp speed,' thought Buccaneer, closing
but maybe still too far off. 'If only I hadn't left that booster
pod back in the asteroid belt. . . .'

Commodore Quimby looked to the defense shield. Its blue
color was still faded and flickering ever-so-slightly because of
the photon torpedo. Against a pair of overloaded offensive
phasers, it wouldn't stand a chance. He began writing his last
will and testament on a piece of indestructable metal.

At last, Buccaneer reached the front half of the ship; but
he was at the wrong end. It would take seconds to reach the
bridge area — seconds he might not have. The boom flew past; he
rounded the bulb; and there before him was the port forward
offensive phaser node.

In a soundless concussion of light and fragments, the left-front corner
of the ship shattered, taking the forward phaser with it. No time to
lose; ol' Claw would doubtless fire the other phaser if Buccaneer didn't
destroy it first.

Buccaneer swung up from underneath and smashed the starboard
corner and the last remaining phaser bank; but not before the
first phaser pulse left the housing.

Buccaneer mouthed, "Oh, no," and watched in horror as the
overloaded streak of trans-light, phased red-orange energy
thundered down through the terrestrial atmosphere. Quimby looked
up for what he thought was the last time.

And the overloaded energy pulse struck Gibraltar City's shield.

The phaser painted the deflector dome red, bathed the
cowering city in its crimson radiation, shook the landscape —
and faded to nothingness as the shield dissipated it and the
skyline turned blue once more. Buccaneer had done it.

The Clawmobile — a hybrid water/land/air/space craft —
launched from the remains of the K't'inga ship under the shroud
of the cloaking device. Captain Claw had escaped with
Klingoncat, carrying the cloaking device with him since it was
only a two-decimeter-diameter white sphere. In his tiny,
invisible craft, he privately cursed, "I'll get you next time,
Buccaneer! Next . . . time . . ."

"Rrrreow!" added Klingoncat.

Buccaneer descended into Gibraltar City accompanied by an orchestra playing
the triumph march, "I've Found the New Meaning of Life." The din of the
crowd was almost overwhelming. "Yaaaaay, Buccaneer!"